The Social Responsibility of Business Friedman vs Drucker Free Essay Example, 1000 words

Casuistry is a 17th century concept according to which what is ethical for a ruler is different from what is ethical for the individual since the ruler is "someone whose actions have impact on other". As such, a ruler must put social responsibility ahead of individual conscience. Drucker denounces casuistry because it "considers social responsibility to be an ethical absolute" and because it makes ethics a political objective of businesses and business executives. Drucker further gives examples to demonstrate how casuistry is not compatible with what is considered ethical. Next Drucker looks at business ethics as Ethics of Prudence. According to this approach, every person in a corporation has some degree of leadership and a leader must never act in a way that his actions need to be explained to others. Although Drucker feels that Ethics of Prudence has the potential of becoming practice in public relations, he feels that it is appropriate in a "society of organizations". Drucker de fines a "society of organization" as one in which a large number of individuals are in important positions of power. However, this power is not conferred by birth but is result of their position and so they have a responsibility to take right actions. We will write a custom essay sample on The Social Responsibility of Business: Friedman vs Drucker or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now According to him, Ethics of Prudence is not business ethics because it lays down the same ethical principle for everyone and is based on authority while business ethics rejects any authority. Finally, Drucker approaches ethics as the Confucian ethics of interdependence. According to this approach, every individual is interdependent on another individual and his or her actions should be such that they lead to mutual benefits for both parties. In conclusion, Drucker contends that ethics should be concerned with interdependence and must be about ethics of prudence and the term business ethics is not clearly able to define such a universal ethical behavior. Neither Friedman nor Drucker are essentially against being ethical or socially responsible. As Friedman says, a business executive's responsibility is to "engage in open and free competition without deception and fraud". Drucker also advocates behavior that is appropriate and one would respect in oth ers. However, they both object to the use of the terms "social responsibility" and "business ethics". Friedman claims that it is alright for businesses to engage in activities that may directly or indirectly benefit the society, as long as its end result is to maximize profits for the business.